A long day...

Today was a long day. Since our plans changed late in our preparations a few weeks ago we had to drive a long way to our first orphanage. Traveling in Africa requires one to be very flexible. The attitude of most Kenya people is much more laid back than in America. Our drivers where supposed to meet us at our hotel this morning at 7am. Leaving at 7am would give us the opportunity to drive the 5 hours to our first stop in Londani before it got too late in the day. It was a good plan, one that I worked very hard on. It would have also worked…if the drivers were not an hour and a half late. When we finally got loaded up into our 8 vans (no small feat with 36 people and 56 bags) we drove for approximately 3 minutes before our driver pulled over. It would seem all 8 drivers did not fill up their tanks before they picked us up.
Filling up the gas tanks was easy enough but did require me to stand out in the middle of a Nairobi gas station with about $1,000 cash paying the bill on 8 different trucks to 12 different gas station attendants. (Kenya still uses full service pumps with attendants) I had to laugh at the looks we got with our 8 vans and the white guy with wads of cash standing on the corner of a busy downtown intersection. Our whole little pit stop cost us another 30 minutes and we finally left Nairobi at 9:30am two and a half hours after our scheduled departure.
The long drive was rewarding in that when we finally arrived in Landani we were greeted by the entire church, orphanage, and village. We pulled in to the compound with children singing and dancing, someone even brought out an African drum and started pounded away.
After the formal and informal greetings we toured the orphanage and had lunch. Since we arrived at such a late hour (2:30) we only had an hour and a half until we had to leave. Our hotel is an over an hour from the orphanage and we did not want to travel after dark.
One the way home something very unfortunate happened. A taxi van called a Matatou was in an accident in front of us. Several Kenyan people were hurt. We were one of the first one’s on the scene and felt a great responsibility to stop since we had so many medical supplies and two medical professionals. Ben Doke (our Dr), Leslie Doke (our nurse) and myself jumped out to help and sent the vans and the teens on ahead away from the accident. One man, a Kenyan, was injured very badly and needed the most help. After 20 minutes of working on him with everything we had, he died with Ben, Leslie and I trying everything we could to stop it.
Needless to say we have had much to digest today. The reality of life in Africa has sunk in full force to our entire team. The combination of a hard day of travel, the first exposure to orphans, and the unfortunate death of the Kenyan man has left us seeking God’s guidance. At devo tonight we discussed at length the day’s events and how we would respond to them. While we did not come up with complete answers we did decide we would do our best to make tomorrow the best day the children have had in a while. We have bible storied, games, crafts and ever finger nail paints that we plan to use to make their (and our) tomorrow better than today.
Please keep us in your prayers and pray extra prayers that God will keep us safe and that the evil one will not attack us. Pray also for our teens who are doing well but have been faced with some harsh realities today. Pray that God will use our work in the orphanages to bless us and our new Kenyan friends.